About Rationally Speaking

Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Intellectual arrogance

Since my recent post on VP nominee Sarah Palin I have been struck by a number of intemperate comments posted on this blog, on “Uncommon Descent” (the Discovery Institute blog, which reprinted a few lines of my original post), and even via private emails. Now, you might say, what do you expect? You decided to enter the blogosphere, so vitriolic attacks on what you write are to be expected as part and parcel of the “job” (for which, of course, I’m not paid).

Right, but my issue is not with the personal attacks on me. My skin is thick enough, I assure you, or I wouldn’t have been able to survive for a quarter century in academia. (Before you laugh, think of how much rejection is built into the job: most of your job applications will be turned down, most of your papers will be harshly criticized by at least some anonymous reviewer, and most of your grant proposals will be returned unfunded, again anonymously and often rather harshly. If you don’t have an ego big enough to sustain the bruises year after year, you better get out of the game.)

No, my problem is with the all too common accusation of intellectual arrogance being hurtled at myself and most of my colleagues who defend science from pseudoscience, be that creationism, intelligent design, UFO claims, psychic powers, astrology or “alternative” medicine. The reasoning, such as it is, goes like this: how dare you, Dr. X (put here any name of any scientist who dares to write for the public), claim that so many people are wrong and you and a small number of other egg-headed intellectuals are right? Who are you to declare the truth of evolution and the falsity of intelligent design? What makes you the arbiter in deciding what is science and what is bunk?

The answer is simple: I am an expert. You shouldn’t trust me on car mechanics, or on civil engineering, or on market analysis. But what I have to say about science counts more than what most people have to say about it because I am a scientist and they are not. The reason I don’t feel any qualms declaring evolution a sound scientific theory and intelligent design as not even junk science is because I am a professional organismal biologist, and pretty much everyone who accepts ID is not. By comparison, imagine how foolishlyou would feel if a thousand car mechanics tell you that you need to change the carburetor in your car and you keep insisting that they don’t know what they are talking about, elitist auto-experts that they are, because carburetors obviously don’t exist!

Intellectual arrogance, in the utmost degree, is being displayed by those who dismiss out of hand the considerate opinion of someone who has studied a field for 25 years only because they cherish a particular religious worldview that has no independent foundation in reality. Arrogance, according to my dictionary, is “having an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities,” and it seems to me to fit perfectly someone who has no technical background in a given field and yet pontificates endlessly about what is True and what is not.

The idea that someone who has not bothered to study a highly technical area of knowledge turns around and accuses experts in those areas of being arrogant is both ridiculous and a common strategy in certain political quarters. Consider the Obama-McCain contrast of this electoral cycle, or the Kerry-Bush of the last cycle. I don’t know whether Obama or Kerry are “elitist” in any meaningful sense of the word, although as Jon Stewart aptly put it, I want the guy who is running for the most powerful job on the planet to be better than me! But the idea that McCain -- who is so rich that he doesn’t know how many houses he owns, or Bush -- with a degree from ivy league Yale and a career propelled by his father’s money and connections, are “common folks” who really feel the pain of the people is astoundingly ludicrous. And yet millions of people buy straight into it without a second thought (thought, or lack thereof, being the key word here).

Our national discourse has gotten so bad that demagogues can get away with throwing any amount of mud at their opponents while claiming to have their hands as clean as snow, just like people who have no knowledge or understanding of the matters at hand can gingerly accuse serious professionals of being intellectually arrogant -- and feel very much self-righteous about it too. Al Gore, in his most recent book, put it in terms of an assault on reason. To reason, again going by the dictionary, is the ability to “think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.” The right wing-fundamentalist axis that has gained so much prominence and political power in the United States over the past several years has truly thrown reason out the window. Now they would like to finish the job by accusing intellectuals of being un-reasonable, obtuse, and conceited.

It is time to reverse the tide and take a stand. If you reject the theory of evolution, or think that there is such a thing as alternative (as opposed to evidence-based) medicine, or claim without evidence that aliens are visiting the planet, or think that the stars influence human destiny, and so on, you are anti-science and live in a dream world with no connection to reality. More damning, you are engaging in the ultimate act of arrogance: to declare something true or untrue not because you have reason or evidence, but only because it makes you feel better. May I suggest that you need a good dose of humility, and that one way to get it is to admit that the universe is not about you, and that some people out there really know more than you do, as unpleasant a thought as this may be?

It is impossible, Massimo, to have areas of science that DO NOT cross over into philosophy. You might be an expert on the little details, but people are welcome to doubt that you are an expert ON ALL AREAS OF LIFE just because you understand the tiniest organisms and everything that MIGHT PERTAIN TO THEM.

Now I, for one, am impressed.

When it comes to those particular matters I don’t have problem with you telling me or any other person HOW THOSE THINGS WORK - I accept you as an authority on specifically that issue and on this blog. WHAT I CANNOT in good conscience accept your authority on, is how to raise families, teach kids about sex, separate children from their parents … and so on. You are not trusting of authority yourself, so how could you know what comes next?

I believe Caliana has more cause to doubt Massimo's word in areas that lie outside his domain of expertise (although Massimo's philosophy training appears to be more formal and extensive than one might typically expect from a scientist).

However, to the degree that Sarah ("Teach the Controversy") Palin and other politicians step into that and other knowledge domains, you better believe that I want to hear what the relevant experts have to say on those matters!

And, based on her speech at the RNC last night, I too am impressed by Palin — not by her grasp of reality (religious conservatives often strike me as living in an alternate universe), but by how self-confident and poised she is in public.

But as far as Palin's politics are concerned...let's just say that Massimo and I inhabit the same universe.

I think you're completely missing the point of Massimo's entry. His whole point is that you SHOULDN'T take his word for things such as "how to raise families, teach kids about sex, separate children from their parents … and so on".

In his own words: "You shouldn’t trust me on car mechanics, or on civil engineering, or on market analysis. But what I have to say about science counts more than what most people have to say about it because I am a scientist and they are not."

Just for the record, since mufi brought it up: I do have formal training (a PhD) in philosophy, as well as in science.

Needless to say (or is it?), that doesn't mean that anything I say about either science or philosophy is the Truth. It just means that you need really good reasons and/or training before dismissing out of hand what I might have to say in those areas.

I am fully sympathetic with your post, but consider a different version of the same accusation of arrogance. This version does not question your expertise in your field, but questions (a) the style in which scientist and science groupies (like The Amazing Randi) express their opinion, (b) the application of a technical opinion to larger questions in human knowledge.

Style, in my sentence above, is not a simple matter of superficial politeness, but a deeper issue of a rhetorical technique used to dismiss (often pre-emptively) an alternative or an opposing argument. The best example of this is Alan Sokal's prank on the non-peer-reviewed journal "Social Text". It shows up in Randi's and others' speeches and book titles (unfortunately even in your own, despite your much more nuanced understanding of contingency). Words such as "nonsense" ("fashionable nonsense", etc). Often, such arguments (though not yours) involve their own unreason (such as poor reasoning that argues from the benefits of technological progress to the ontological exclusivity of science).

Regarding (b), the reductionism that serves scientists so well, when applied in a generalised manner that denies the messines off the external world, is often what gets the masses angry. This mood (and the legitimacy of the critique) is best captured by Amartya Sen's "Rational Fools" paper, which I highly recommend to all. I will offer my own simple example: economists who employ game theory, often call various behaviours by humans "irrational". That is because they have a pre-defined notion of "rational" that equates it to immediately quantifiable benefit to self. A biologist on the other hand, might have a very different take on the same behaviour, finding in it evolutionarily selected fitness.

Using your own definition, how would you rate the words of one of the most celebrated American scientists of the 20th century, Richard Feynman, who described people (philosophers) who have spent decades considering difficult problems of a most fundamental nature, "second-rate thinkers"? That is intellectual arrogance. The same holds for those who ridicule post-modernists, as Gabriel Stolzenberg so wonderfully points out, in a section title: '“It makes me laugh” is not an argument':

http://math.bu.edu/people/nk/rr/

As I like to say ;-), the opposite of doubt is not faith, it is certainty. In other words, sceptics ("doubt"ers) are often arrogant because they are *certain* their technique, their knowledge, trumps all else, including those of the "faith" type. But faith always includes doubt. Certainty does not. And that's what is arrogant.

As Right On Washington would say: "Right on, right on, right on!"Ravi made a few good points but overall I'm not buying it. It may be a bit of arrogance of my own but I think Massimo hit the nail on the head.And as a final note, I see that once again Randi's credentials as a "scientist" are being questioned. I know he doesn't claim to be a scientist but after all these years of working with scientists, studying testing techniques, dealing with statistics, etc, I figure he's as much a scientist as most of us who lay claim to the title.

You shouldn’t trust me on car mechanics, or on civil engineering, or on market analysis.

But it seems that a lot of Americans would rather have a "regular guy" in the White House instead of an "arrogant" expert. That's the appeal of George Bush. It appears to be the appeal of Palin as well. Hence the attacks on Obama as "elite". They unfortunately work.

Die Anyway wrote:Ravi made a few good points but overall I'm not buying it. It may be a bit of arrogance of my own ...

Well, absent any other argument, we can definitely admit arrogance as a possibility! ;-)

As for Randi, lab rats work around scientists for their entire life too. We might as well canvass their opinion. ;-) They may not know any cheap magic tricks, though! Seriously speaking, I am not "questioning Randi's credentials". I am identifying him as a science groupie. Technically, he is not a scientist. Factually he claims that he can consistently differentiate between science and pseudo-science/nonsense. This, to me, makes him a science groupie. But this is a small matter: in a comment that spanned five paragraphs, I spent one sentence on Randi, and we should not let that distract us from the main topic at hand.

but my point is exactly that Bush is anything BUT a regular guy, which means that a lot of people people are easy to dupe.

Ravi,

I take some of your points, but you also need to understand that sometimes too much is simply too much, and one needs "rhetorical venting." I try to be nice and polite most of the time, but when someone tells me that the fossils are the handiwork of the devil, I really feel like an argument is not needed, and laughter is the best response...

The analogy to car mechanics is particularly useful: the distrust and concern that most people feel w.r.t car mechanics is that they neither possess all the expertise they claim, nor do they care to do a good job on something that is valuable to you but not so to them. This is roughly the same concern that many feel towards the purveyors of modern science and technology.

There is no doubt in my mind that the tendency to redirect and refocus people's attention on to sec hum as some kind of an "answer to everything" is all part of the Massimo package. And he can do that. Just don't suggest then that you are not an evangelist for atheism. It is evident that he is more of an evangelist for atheism than cell biology.

Sarah Palin, whether people like it or not, REALLY has God's hand on her. And that is the singular reason that some political ideologues totally have it out to ruin her. (as if by doing so anyone could take GOD out of the equation) She may be not quite perfect, but God would have no one to use if he could only seek out the flawless amongst us.

With a confidence rating in AK of like 90%, anyone functioning on EVEN a half a brain has to admit that here is something real unique about her. And it's not that she is JUST a cute 40 something. :) There is something in her spirit that one knows is authentic. And while I do not claim to know exactly how the “spirit thing” works, after the first few words out of her mouth, I knew precisely who she was and where she was coming from.

Words carry an incredible amount of weight at times, don’t they. Spoken by people who sincerely mean them, the impact of that is insurmountable.

Bruce said: But it seems that a lot of Americans would rather have a "regular guy" in the White House instead of an "arrogant" expert.

So it often seems, although they also seem to have some sense of special qualification for leadership that is neither regular nor arrogant — more like: principled, decisive, hard-working, self-sacrificing, strong-minded, faithful and (of course) patriotic.

In the right measures (e.g. when counter-balanced by deliberation and open-mindedness), these can indeed refer to positive qualities. However, when taken to extremes, they can translate into ignorance, prejudice, and combativeness.

you are of course not the target of my comments. Without intending to flatter, I will offer that if more scientists (and science followers like Randi) echoed your interest in the philosophical underpinnings of their trade, my points would be mostly moot.

I do understand the nature of the beast you (and I too, in a lesser way ;-)) are fighting (just as Paul Feyerabend was in understanding the alternate beast, and employed his polemics against it).

There is a difference though between how you are doing so, and how someone like Sokal, Weinberg, Randi, Dennett, Dawkins, Feynman, etc are (or were) doing it. For instance, you won't hear them speak much of "scientism". You will see them (e.g: Sokal and Bricmont) attack most of Philosophy of Science, and other academic fields.

My own comment attempt to highlight where some of the accusations of intellectual arrogance come from. There is a camp (such as the right-wing) that finds the phrase redundant, since for them intellectualism is arrogance.

Apologies: I hit "Publish" before completing the previous comment, which ended:

My own comment attempt to highlight where some of the accusations of intellectual arrogance come from. There is a camp (such as the right-wing) that finds the phrase redundant, since for them intellectualism is arrogance.

I meant to add:

However, there is an alternate camp that values intellectual activity, but is rightly suspicious of the arrogance of intellectuals (and experts) who do not realise that they know a bit more than the regular guy does, but not everything.

Let's compare the writings of two individuals. Only one of them is an arrogant bastard. See if you can spot him.

Charles Darwin in his book "On The Origin Of Species" writes in a dispassionate style and lays out his grand argument by citing the works of numerous other researchers, not just his own. He plays devil's advocate repeatedly and argues against himself, because he is actually interested in getting at the natural world's secrets.

Michael Behe tosses out his argument for intelligent design in his book "Darwin's Black Box". He offers little in the way of supporting evidence, and goes out of his way to tell the audience what conclusions to draw. He even invites the reader to skip large sections of the book because they are too technical, and even places little bars around the relevant talking points.

One of these writers is clearly more experienced than the other. One is clearly an arrogant bastard who thinks the reader is a child to be coddled and left unchallenged.

thanks for the flattering words, but of course it would have been all right even if you were indeed attacking me!

Now, let me make one thing clear: not for one minute do I defend the position that scientists in particular and intellectuals more broadly are never arrogant. I have witnessed way too many faculty meetings for that silly notion to enter my head!

But while arrogance is a bad trait in general, there is a distinction still to be made between someone who is arrogant and competent (say, Dawkins) and someone who is arrogant and ignorant (say Behe, to cite the example just brought up by thedarwinreport. Not to mention Palin, of course.

Oh, one note about Randi (yes, I understand this is a minor thread in the discussion, but still).

I think he is more than a "science groupie," he is an expert in illusionism and fraud, which means that he provides essential technical expertise when it comes to investigation of alleged paranormal phenomena. It is only if an alleged example of paranormalism passes the preliminary Randi-like test that it is ready for prime time scientific investigation.

Regarding whether or not Massimo or I qualify as "evangelist[s] for atheism", it's certainly fair game to point out another's philosophical biases, particularly in the political arena.

Yet it would be a mistake to conclude from this discussion that all scientists are atheists (especially those in centuries past, despite Galileo's persecution by the church), just as it would be a mistake to conclude that all atheists are scientists (especially given the pre-scientific versions we find in Greek philosophy). I, for one, am not (and I'm pretty sure that I'd make a poor evangelist for any ideological cause).

More to the point, *anyone* (be they religious or secular, theistic or atheistic) who accepts the testimonies of scientific experts on biological evolution and climate change (just to mention two politically hot topics) is likely to share at least some of Massimo's critique of Palin's public statements on those matters.

Dare say, "I am a expert," is a great response, and a perfectly appropriate one. ( I did get quite exasperated with Dembski once and say - on stage- "I know you're wrong because I, unlike you, can ADD." That went over well (though really I lost my cool, which is not cool).

In any case, it is much easier to defend one's knowledge of biology then if one were to study.... anthropology of world religions; a great many people have at one point seen something on television about that, or have a friend who's been there. No greater expertise will be recognized.

"Our national discourse has gotten so bad that demagogues can get away with throwing any amount of mud at their opponents while claiming to have their hands as clean as snow..."

Not only that - they can just make things up, things that are completely detached from reality and they suffer not at all for it. Indeed, reality denial and revision is a well-paid niche within the conservative movement.

During Mitt Romney's speech last night he said that "big government liberals" had to be voted out to stop run-away federal spending. Um, the federal deficit quintrupled under Reagan and Bush; national debt went from 914 billion to 4 trillion. Under Clinton the budget got balanced in his second term and the deficit transformed into a surplus, which was immediately turned back into massive deficits by Bush and the Republican Congress he had for much of his time in office.

Anti-intellectualism is just a sub-set of the party's larger pattern of anti-realityism.

Indeed, reality denial and revision is a well-paid niche within the conservative movement.

Talk about it... Last night's (9/3) Daily Show had a masterpiece on the subject, seriously. They had some 4 or 5 instances of conservative hypocrisy on display. The best thing is that most of them were extremely recent. E.g. Karl Rove bashing the possibility of Tim Kaine as VP (only 3 years governor, mayor of my small town of Richmond, only 200,000 people), to a few weeks later be gushing praise over... you know who. Another favorite was Bill O'Reilly calling Britney Spears (spell?) parents "pinheads" and full at fault for her younger sister's pregnancy a little while ago... Then you know what he says next, don't you?

Watch the episode, it's great. And Stewart gets mildly angry at Newt Gingrich to boot at the interview. :-D

regarding differentiating between arrogances: yes I agree there is a difference, and I even agree it is an important one. I will note though that the general public is somewhat (if subconsciously) aware of this: they condemn the arrogance but do not necessarily boycott the results/products (which I do not think is hypocritical). Also, the general distaste for arrogance is a salubrious one, in my opinion.

Regarding Randi: well yes, debunking fraud is important, but the problematic issue is the larger claims and larger context in which it is carried out. Scientific fraud (such as carried out by Eddington, perhaps unintentionally) does not negate science. Some could claim that absent fraud, astrology (to take on vilified "field") has provided nothing, and therefore astrology, is in its basis, a fraud. But that is incorrect on two fronts: astrology's problem is atrophy, for there was a time when it was synonymous with astronomy (as historians of science tell us). The second problem is that even if a field is entirely unproductive, that does not reduce it to a fraud, since fraud involves intention, and so on. Further one never knows when a progressive area of study (unlike an atrophied one) might yield unexpected results.

Finally, regarding disagreement with a bevy of experts: the philosopher Simon Blackburn approvingly (mistaken in my opinion) cheers Sokal's prank and considers the prank (Blackburn considers it a well-deserved and sufficient custard pie) and Sokal's later book cottage industry based on it, a matter of a scientist paying attention to philosophy. The same Blackburn however is at odds with scientific consensus on global warming. In fact, he claims that there is no such real consensus. What do we make of it?

IMHO, the only valid application of arrogance (intellectual or otherwise), similar to violence, is to counter its use by a more powerful entity.

I have to disagree in part on astrology. True, it is not just a matter of fraud (though that's to some extent what's going on). But the other part is not that astrology is "unproductive," it's that it is downright wrong. It's bad science and it should be treated as such.

Speaking of reality revision, the night of McCain's speech the RNC ran a "tribute" to the 9/11 victims which says that "the [Jihadist] enemy" began its attacks us back in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

This obviously reflects the neoconservative desire to start another ruinous war on a country that has nothing to do with al Qaeda.

I refer to this phenomenon as the movement of "Intellectual Affirmative Action". It's become chic to have absolutely no expertise in a field while also being unable to at least show basic critical/logical thinking skills yet still claim that you have some sort of 'right' to have your "opinion (that's the favorite word to toss around) should be just as important as anyone else's. They've turned it into a mental version of this inane 'equality' issue by effectively subtly implying that to call them wrong is a subversive argumentum ad hominem.

HG: This obviously reflects the neoconservative desire to start another ruinous war on a country that has nothing to do with al Qaeda."

Oh, of course. Especially since the McCain /Palin ticket has a total of FOUR military men (those are their sons)in their respective families in the service right now. The last thing I would do, would be to start an unnecessary war if my sons or daughters were in the military.

Think sometimes for you spout something completely untrue.

I was possibly about five feet from Palin and McCain last night. And I was even much closer to the several hundred protesters who came to rant and holler at how mad they are for living in a free country where a military man like McCain can run for pres! LOL Yeah, it sure shows a lot of class to scream at and slander the man who took EXTREME torture and abuse for you, so you can TODAY have the "right" to make such incredibly foolish and cowardly decisions.

Cal, Palin is a creationist. That means she is seriously intellectually challenged. McCain thinks evil is a person.These people can't be trusted with running a coffee circle, let alone the White House.

I'd also like to add that McCain dis NOT "take extreme abuse and torture for me"; he suffered as a POW because of US imperialism and warmongering. America had no right to be in Vietnam. Or are you claiming manifest desitny again, Cal?

It hasn't taken Caliana long to fall back on the usual nonsense that conservatives use when they are incapable of offering real arguments. What is ironical and laughable is his/her admonition to "Think sometimes for you spout something". Would it that s/he would follow that advice. Let us review: the Republicans are the ones that ran a campaign against a triple amputee veteran (Max Cleland) that maligned his patriotism. A Republican candidate (Mitt Romney) is the one that suggested that his five sons were serving their country equally by campaigning for him. And neocons (the group identified in the comment that Caliana is responding to) have not served in the army -- the entire gang, in fact, took every option available to avoid enlisting or being drafted.

What is also despicable is Caliana's claim that protestors and activists are any less concerned with the good of all and serving that interest. The US has not faced a serious war of defence since World War II (when it was attacked in Pearl Harbour and elsewhere). On the other hand, it has had to fight internal attacks (racism, sexism, etc) that weaken its democracy and egalitarianism. Each of these causes have been advanced by activists (civil rights, gender and other equality, etc).

I feel no compunction to feel cowed or influenced by Caliana's threats and mischaracterisations. I owe McCain nothing, especially, as Muhammad Ali once said, no "Vietnamese ever called me nigger". That McCain stuck it out in his cell in solidarity with his mates is commendable -- of course solidarity is exactly what the left is about, in contrast to conservative right-wing individualism. And so, I congratulate McCain on his erstwhile leftist tendencies. Too bad he has left that well behind him as he panders to the "agents of intolerance", blocks bills that benefit veterans and is opposed today by groups like the Iraq Veterans Against the War.

And if Caliana wants to see what courage, that is courage without the arsenal of the world's largest and most powerful military behind you, I invite her to study about people on the left like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, and recently Rachel Corrie.

"And I was even much closer to the several hundred protesters who came to rant and holler at how mad they are for living in a free country where a military man like McCain can run for pres!"

Oh yeah Cal, they were surely there to protest the fact that McCain can legally run for president! That's what really angers all of us liberals!

"LOL Yeah, it sure shows a lot of class to scream at and slander the man who took EXTREME torture and abuse for you, so you can TODAY have the 'right' to make such incredibly foolish and cowardly decisions."

The fact that you put the word "right" in scare quotes shows how little you take the concept of freedom seriously.

JF"The fact that you put the word "right" in scare quotes shows how little you take the concept of freedom seriously."

On the contrary. I love even these protesters just like anyone else. That's why I walk right through their protest and smile at them instead of walking on the other side of the street like pretty much everyone. And they do have the right to their protest. But it can't go without saying, that it is a huge misrepresentation of what freedom is for. Freedom is for dialogue. People only start screaming and ranting when there is NO tolerance for constructive dialogue left in the world.

Hate that.

JF "And the Vietnam war wasn't in defense of our freedom, anyway."

When you have administration after administration, you are bound to have some mistakes made. It does not rightly make the whole of American justice automatically corrupt. I am also not about to say that all military people and their service to their country was a complete waste because SOME MISTAKES have been made. That would be a ridiculous oversimplification.

My father was trapped in an overturned tank for days on end up to possibly up to a week (serving after Korea and the beginning of Vietnam) while all the other soldiers with him were dead. He had to hold out in that tank till someone finally rescued him. So, not surprisingly, he had a nervous breakdown.

So at this point in my life, what do you suggest that my level of commitment ought to be?

We who do understand what kind of things have been given up for our security and safety, we DO tend to be more committed.

I'm just darn thankful that my dad isn't trying to kill people anymore. Sometimes I have feared he might accidentally kill me. Figured if I can overcome that fear (which I am always in the process of doing) I can do pretty much anything.

Excellent post! John Pieret thinks we should press-gang you for our blog carnival, and after reading this, I agree. If you'd like to take this post cruising with us on September 27th, drop us a line at elitistbastardscarnival@gmail.com.

Fantastic post! I completely agree with you on this one. The anti-intellectual/anti-scientific climate has forced society back a few steps. It's now "cool" to be completely illogical. People even seem to congratulate others for blind faith and ignorance.

Caliana said;"We who do understand what kind of things have been given up for our security and safety, we DO tend to be more committed."It's a painful reality that people tend to value those things they paid a lot for - even if that value is false. In business, it manifests as a desire to tote up the cost of capital equipment. In business, best practice teaches that the only rational concern is present value and the cost of future options. What you paid for it yesterday may be a lot, or a little, but unless you have evidence, it isn't a true reflection of today's value. e.g. Your father may have suffered for nothing (no advancement of freedom). In any case, my point is that people like your father have suffered just like your father did, for nothing. That is horrible, but if you don't face it, you may be blind to sending more boys off to suffer the same fate.

On another note, I am guilty of often talking about the arrogance of 'the West,' and how we tend to overestimate the reach of science (scientists know everything, and in great detail) and the power of analytical logic. Often knowledge which is popular or cultural or inductively inferred is dismissed as baseless simply because there is no scientific evidence to back it up. Consequently, when scientists finally did the studies and announced, with breathless self-importance, that they'd 'discovered' the reality of PMS, women who'd been observing it firsthand for generations felt justified disgust. Just because you did a survey to determine where the Washington Monument was within .0001 inches doesn't mean you discovered it.

That said, most of the criticism of science belongs in the wings. The vast body has been tested so vigorously that it justifies firm faith.

I am afraid, though, that maybe we are misinterpreting the signs. I think the conservatives of the 30s and 40s criticised the social programs of the liberals by saying there was no scientific evidence to back them up. Then the liberals, acknowledging that truth, went out to do the diligence. When the science came back (like, on the ineffectiveness of 'abstinence only'), the liberals thought the conservatives would jump right on board. Instead, the conservatives are attacking the science with mass marketed lies and illogic. I don't think the problem is that they don't understand. I think the problem is that _WE_ don't understand. They don't care what logic or evidence or reason we use to argue our point. They've already made up their mind, and will use any weapon at hand to get what they want, which is to take us back to ancient Egypt; with a few absolute rulers, and vast, impoverished, illiterate masses. I don't know exactly why. Maybe it is a simpler world; black and white, right and wrong. Maybe they just relish Crime and Punishment when liberals want to alleviate suffering.

I think we should be careful not to be distracted from the real problem, which is mounting political opposition to their point of view. We certainly need to heed the use (against science!!)of the social sciences (advertising) in controlling the masses by controlling the media, and go after the root. We need to change their minds more directly (by finding out what they want and convincing them that science, rationality, conscience will get them there). Whether science is true or accurate appears to be irrelevant to them.